Living in a world where I was worth more dead than alive was
a choice. I was a bad man, never claimed to be anything else. I’ve done things
I’m not proud of. Seen things that can’t be unseen. I’ve caused pain that I
can’t undo.

It was all my choice.

Every decision.

Every order.

Right and wrong never mattered.

Until her.

She was under my protection, until she became my obsession.

But who was going to save her…

From. Me. The devil himself.

Fate brought us together. Destiny destroyed us.

“Go stretch again, cariño,” I ordered in a dominant tone. Nodding to the barre.“I’m fine,” she stubbornly replied. Shaking her legs and arms out. Getting back into position, looking at me through the mirror.I cocked my head to the side, arching an eyebrow. She narrowed her eyes at me, but begrudgingly listened. I pressed play, allowing the melody to once again take over. She placed her leg on the lowest barre, making her ass stick out in my direction.
Tempting me.
She closed her eyes, needing to get lost in the music, wanting to push away all the negative thoughts, already feeling discouraged. I stood, taking off my suit jacket. Rolling up the sleeves of my collared shirt as I stepped onto the hardwood floor. I slowly came up behind her, catching her off guard.
She froze, turning around, opening her eyes. Peering up at me through her lashes. “What are you doing?”
I leaned forward against her ear, grinning. “I’m helping you stretch.” Getting down on my knees in front of her.
Her eyes dilated. The feeling of disappointment replaced with nothing but lust. She placed her arms out to the side, resting up against the barre, supporting her weight. I grabbed her ankle, lifting it up in the air, rubbing along her leg as it was fully stretched, before setting it on the lowest barre. Running my other hand up her side, easing her over toward the extended leg. She understood what I was doing, reaching for her ankle, stretching. Standing back up, bringing her arms above her head, I caressed along her leg again, casually turning her torso so her leg was still placed on the barre behind her.
Her breathing hitched as I touched her all over her lower body. My lips softly kissing the inside of her thigh to where she wanted my mouth the most.

I sobbed for the first time in front of Briggs, in front of
the woman who was trying to save my life, while I just kept trying to destroy
it.
My resolve broke like a chain that had been stretched to the max. I
heard it snap loud and clear. Shattering into a million pieces, blending into
the sand along with my demons.
Except the shackles that were tied around
my soul, my heart, and my mind were now secured tighter, restraining, pressing
in so deep. So intensely, to the point of blinding agony.
Dragging
Briggs right along with me.

Colors blended together making it hard to focus on one thing. I blinked a few times and just like that…

I saw her face.

As if she was standing right in front of me.

Smiling.

Happy.

Laughing.

My whole world…

My girl.

I felt my lips curl up slightly at the vision as I reached out for her. Wanting to touch her, needing to hold her, yearning to kiss her. Craving, God, craving to fucking love her.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured out loud to no one but the illusion of my drug-infested mind. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I repeated repentantly, longing for her to believe me.

Aching for her to love me again like she used to.

I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at her beautiful face before my eyes, subconsciously rubbing the tattooed key that was placed over my heart. I couldn’t take it anymore, and the desire won over the haze.

It was too powerful.

It was too vivid.

I grabbed my phone. “Baby,” I said into the speaker. The ringing quickly followed, going straight to voicemail. I hung up and tried again. “Baby,” I
urged with desperation in my tone.

Still nothing.

I tried again and again and again.

I would try until the end of time if that’s what it took for her to answer.

To talk to me.

To save me.

To crave me.

Time just seemed to standstill, as my life slowly played out in front of me. Trying to balance in between the light and the darkness when all I could see was gray.

“What?!” she screamed into the phone, finally answering after I don’t know how many failed attempts. “What the hell do you want now?”

“Mi cielo.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

She ignored my term of endearment. I hadn’t called her that in such a long time.

My heaven.

“What do you want, Austin? Why are you calling me? We’re over! I can’t do this anymore!”

I shut my eyes and let my mind wonder, allowing it to go to another place in time where she didn’t hate me.

“I remember the first time I made you smile,” I chuckled, as if it had just happened.

My nerves were on fire. The mere sound of her breathing through the phone was too intense for me. I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry.

“I remember when you used to smile just for me. Do you remember, baby? Do you remember what my love feels like?”

I heard her faintly breathing.

“Do you remember my hands on you? My lips? My tongue? The first time I made you come with my mouth? Do you remember all the times since? Tell me I’m not forgotten. Tell me you remember, baby.”

“No, Austin. You were dying with me,” she rasped, knowing that it killed her to say that.

“The first time I saw your face, I thought to myself, damn, this beautiful girl is goin’ to be the death of me. You were perfect in every way. I was a cocky son of a bitch who needed you then, as much as I need you now.”

More silence.

“I had a dream about you, baby. I always fucking dream about you. In my dream you had a ring on your finger. A ring I put there. You belonged to me. Only mine.
Forever fucking mine. You were pregnant, Briggs. You looked so goddamn happy. I saw light at the end of the tunnel for the first time in years.”

She sniffled into the phone.

“I made love to you. Slow, just the way you love. Taking my time to touch every last inch of your body. Memorizing every last bit of you. Making you come until you begged me to stop. I didn’t.”

“I can’t—” she tried to interject, but I didn’t let up.

“I kissed your stomach. Our baby. Letting my lips linger there, whispering sweet lullabies, letting her know daddy will always be there. Baby, it was so real.
For a second I gave you the one thing you so desperately wanted, the one thing I can’t give you.”

Bestselling author of The VIP Trilogy, Tempting Bad, Two Sides Gianna, and The Good Ol’ Boys series. M. Robinson loves to read. She favors anything that has angst, romance, triangles,
cheating, love, and of course sex! She has been reading since the Babysitters Club and R.L. Stein. She was born in New Jersey but was raised in Tampa Fl. She is married to an amazing man who she loves to pieces. They have two German Shepherd mixes and a Tabby cat.

My brown eyed girl sat on our blankets with her arms wrapped
around her knees, hiding her face. The tiny frame that I adored so much shook
uncontrollably, only heightening the deepest sobbing that escalated with each
passing second. It was such an intimate moment, not to be shared with anyone,
especially me. Alex didn’t cry. I watched her bawl for the first time in my
life. I had never seen anyone cry like that before, and it shook me to my core,
slicing me whole, and making me feel like I was dying. Carving a memory that I
would take to my grave.

There was no going back…

No erasing.

No do overs.

No deleting.

What I witnessed tonight would be my purgatory; I would now
close my eyes and forever see her falling apart in front of me. Shattering
before my very own eyes and I found it hard to breathe.

Hard to move.

My feet were glued to the goddamn floor as she continued to
weep, sob, bawl, violently sucking in air that wasn’t available. I accepted it
all; each tear that fell from her face becoming pieces of me. Circulating
through my veins and blood, it flowed endlessly, a river of her sadness and
sorrow and of my broken promises. No beginning or ending to her cries, just an
infinite current, flooding the hole where my heart should be. The shadow of her
trembling petite body reflected off the walls, leaving a trail of regrets in
its wake.

Mine.

Hers.

Ours.

Growing up in a small town you overheard a lot of things.
People talking, stories told, town gossip. You listened a lot. You learned a
lot. Tourists, townies, friends, and especially family all shared wisdom and
advice that you think you will never need.

Bunch of bullshit.

They say you have that one moment in life where things could
have been different, that one moment that changes the course of your life or
the direction you could have taken. That one moment that could forever change
you and everything you wanted to be true, everything you wanted to believe.

One simple decision could alter your entire future.

My entire world.

I would forever remember this moment for the rest of my
life. This is the moment that changed everything. This is the moment where I
took another direction, another road that led me to my own demise.

My own regrets.

I should have walked in there. I should have apologized. I
should have begged for her forgiveness. I should have promised that I would
never hurt her again. I should have done whatever it took to make her look at
me the way she had our entire lives.

But I didn’t…

I did none of those things…

Not one.

Nothing was said between us.

No words.

No actions.

I was a coward and couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see her like
that. I couldn’t look into her eyes and know that I had hurt her. That I had
disappointed her. That I ruined her love and lost her respect for me.

The boy who promised he would never hurt her.

The boy who swore he would always protect her.

The boy who vowed he would never let anything happen to her.

That same boy was me.

I was the reason she was bawling.

I was the reason she was hurt.

I was the reason she was broken.

She knew the truth. It had finally caught up to me… I
shattered her illusion that I was hers. I ruined the one good thing I had in my
life. The girl that owned my heart was bleeding out for me in a way that I had
never seen before. The house was no longer our safe place.

I had brought my hurricane with me…

I couldn’t risk the possibility of losing her permanently if
I walked in there and admitted my truths. She wouldn’t love me anymore, she
wouldn’t look at me the same anymore, and she wouldn’t be mine anymore.

My brown eyed girl.

The girl that I had loved all of my life.

The same girl that I would love for the rest of my life.

Alexandra.

I gave her the only comfort I could in her moment of
despair. I turned around and left. I walked down the stairs and got into my
truck. I turned the engine on and drove my sorry ass home. I took a shower and
never once looked at myself in the mirror. I pretended that nothing changed.
That I didn’t cause her pain, and that she didn’t know the truth. That I didn’t
see her sobbing and that she wasn’t even bawling to begin with. That we were
still just best friends, and that she was my girl and I was her boy.

I tried, God knows I tried to stay away from her but
eventually I crossed that line and broke that trust. I could no longer go back
and I sure as fuck didn’t regret a single moment of it. I knew there would be
hell to pay, I knew the wrath I’d be facing but I would willingly take the
burns and scars just to have the love of my best friend’s sister.

If there is one person I’d willingly go to hell and
back for it was…

Lillian Ryder

Standalone within a series. New Adult Contemporary Romance: Strong
language and sexual content, not intended for readers under 18.

She
narrowed her eyes at me and started to walk backwards down the hall and into
her bedroom with me following close behind. Our eyes locked the entire time,
both of us knowing where this was going. She sat on the edge of the bed, while
I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe, my arms folded over my chest with
one leg crossed over the other. I took in her disappointment that I hadn’t
followed her to the bed. I let a few seconds linger between us, wanting to
remember her and this moment.
Just. Like. This.
“Stand up,” I ordered in a
harsh tone.
She didn’t think twice about it.
“Take off your dress.”
She
reached for the hem.
“Slower.”
She gradually lifted her dress over her creamy
thighs, and I rubbed my fingers over my mouth already tasting her. She threw
her dress on the floor and stood in front of me in nothing but her bra and
panties.
“Turn for me.”
She did.
“You’re so beautiful,” I murmured, loud
enough for her to hear. She reached for her bra.
“No.”
She cocked her head to
the side with a questioning expression.
“That’s my job. I get to strip you
completely naked. I get to make you wet. I get to taste you. I get to make you
come. Do you understand me?”
She nodded and swallowed hard. The bedroom was
the only place Lily ever took orders, the thought alone made her wet.
“Lay on
the bed and close your eyes.”
She was about to say something and I arched an
eyebrow. “Be my good little girl and don’t make me repeat myself.”
She crawled
on the bed making sure to give me a view of her voluptuous butt swaying with
each movement she made. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I pushed
off the wall and ripped off one of the hydrangeas from the vase on her bedside
table. I took off my ball cap, setting it on the edge of the bed and placed the
hydrangea on the tip of her nose. I kept her house stocked with them now just
because I loved seeing her smile every time she looked at them. I spent too
many years not seeing that smile.
I slowly moved it down her body, barely
touching her skin but enough to where it left goose bumps in its wake. Once I
reached her pussy I pressed down firmer, moving it back and forth against her
clit.
She sucked in a breath of air.
I continued to play with her for a few
seconds. Setting the hydrangea on the nightstand, I took off her bra and then
her panties, bringing them up to my face and smelled her wetness.

Best Selling
Author M. Robinson loves to read. She favors anything that has angst, romance,
triangles, cheating, love, and of course sex! She has been reading since the
Babysitters Club and R.L. Stein.

She was born in
New Jersey but was raised in Tampa Fl. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D in
psychology, with two years left.

She is married to
an amazing man who she loves to pieces. They have two German Shepherd mixes and
a Tabby cat.